Columbia, SC - The management task force for Off the Wall, onto the Stage, a unique commingling of the arts, based on the paintings of artist and South Carolina native, Jonathan Green, has engaged TheRackesGroup's services. Green's paintings, which take as their subjects the people, the daily life and the landscape of the South Carolina's southeast coast, will be combined with the dance choreography of William Starrett and the musical composition of Trevor Weston to deliver a testament with meaning for America and the world.
TheRackesGroup will help strategize how the tri-art initiative can be extended through the Internet. Using a blend of web design, rapidly changing information, and electronic messaging, TheRackesGroup will build an audience that creates understanding and support beyond the stage production. Barbara Rackes, manager for the online presence or, for the initiative, says this project offers both unusual challenges and great opportunities through blending the medium of the web with the mediums of design, dance, and music. We hope to integrate all four mediums to represent the unique blend of the 2005 ballet.
The Dancing the Art website will include information about the artists, event schedules, educational outreach for teachers and parents, the ability to offer sponsorships and accept donations. Interested site visitors can sign up for ongoing communications about the event as well as the effort to present worldwide the special blend of arts and culture.
The art of Jonathan Green is rooted in the Gullah heritage, a heritage wrapped in universal themes of family and community, personal identity and expression, race and culture; a particularly southern imagery that explores life and color in a way that the south, with its often turbulent history of immigration, slavery, war, prejudice and acceptance, understands with a real intimacy.
Off the Wall translates Green's extraordinary images to the stage in a visionary return to classical ballet's blending of dance, music and fine art. In a series of vignettes drawn directly from nine of Jonathan's energetic paintings, the ballet explores the tensions and inner meanings of the paintings. The costumes, the landscapes and the people in Jonathan's works literally come to life in dance set to gospel music, jazz, folk songs and hymns rooted in the history of the region. This unique commingling of the arts is an exhilarating testament to the lively, multi-cultural reality of the south.
For more information, contact Barbara Rackes at brackes@therackesgroup.com.